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CHANCE AND THE PREPARED MIND -Jack R. Holt A WAKING DREAM large elm where the adults were calling. I To catch a bird, sprinkle salt on its tail to remember looking up into that tree and prevent it from flying away. -Anon. wondering if the bird would be able to make it I remember my grandfather as a weak, all the way to the first branch. I opened my sickly man. By the time I was old enough to hand, and the bird did not move. I then gave it a interact with him, he had suffered several heart small toss. It fluttered until it managed to land attacks and struggled with emphysema (The on a branch near the parents. family stories about him almost seemed to be about someone else). During that time we lived on the same lot as my grandparents; so I spent most of my time there. My grandfather didn't talk to me or carry on conversations. Usually, he put up with me or told me what to do. On a particular spring day, he had had enough of children's roughhousing and bickering. He singled me out as the instigator (likely that was true) and called me into his room, a place dominated by a large bed and TV. He didn't tell me to be quiet this time. Instead, he gave me a penny salt shaker and told me to go outside and catch a bird. He didn't explain why I should catch one, he just sent me on a mission, and I went. FIGURE 1. An old newspaper photograph of the He did not have to tell me how to catch the Washington Irving Monument with my bird, I had heard the story before. I just had to grandparents' house in the background. Tulsa pour salt on its tail…but how? I stood in front of Tribune, April 13, 1984. the large yellow stucco house that had been built on the site of Washington Irving's encampment My memory of that chance event is that I th during his tour of the prairie in the early 19 was surrounded by life. At that point, I was no Century. The City of Tulsa even erected a longer dreaming. Even now, everything seems monument to him in front of the house (see so vivid that I have trouble believing (except Figure 1). Motionless, I stared at that monument rationally) that the event occurred 40 years ago. trying to figure out how I was going to catch a I stood there on the flagstone path with the wind bird with salt. I don't know how much time in my face and the sounds of birds calling and elapsed. Suddenly, a flutter and thud broke my leaves rustling. The sights, sounds, odors all told waking dream. A baby Robin had flown out of a of life, that enigmatic process that defies strict nearby Juniper and landed at my feet. Quickly, I definition. fumbled with the salt shaker and dumped as much salt as I could all over the poor thing. THINGS THAT BURN Then, I scooped it up and returned triumphantly All the forms of matter which present themselves to the house with my prize. to our view, whether in the solid crust of the My grandfather had a good laugh, and the globe on which we live, in the air which forms bird amazed my siblings. I continued the the atmosphere by which we are surrounded, or triumphal procession into the kitchen where my in the bodies of animals and plants - all are mother and grandmother heard the story with capable of being divided into the two great disbelief. Then, they tried to talk me into giving groups of organic and inorganic matter. up my prize. Ultimately, they were successful, -James Johnston, 1857 but not without lots of persuasion. Living things like Robins and Elms have I went outside with my mother. The Robin particular properties that make them different squirmed in my hand especially when its parents from stones in the path and wind on my face. In began to call and show their displeasure with me. 1807 Jon Jacob Berzelius coined the terms I walked into the back yard and peered up into a "organic" and "inorganic" to recognize the distinctions between the products of life and all that calcium carbonate (CaCO3) had such a other material substances, respectively. Indeed, radical. The carbonate unit was made of one part these distinctions have been debated in science carbon and three parts oxygen with an overall since the Golden Age and continue in the debate charge of -1. about life in extreme environments on earth and Simple carbon compounds could be elsewhere. interpreted in the Dualistic Theory. For example Natural philosophers like Georg Ernst Stahl methane was made of one part carbon and four (1660-1734) solved the problem of the organic- parts hydrogen. Since hydrogen had a positive inorganic dichotomy by suggesting that the charge, carbon must have had a charge of -4. complexity of life (and its products) could be Carbon dioxide (one part carbon and two parts explained only by the existence of a vital force oxygen), however, required that carbon have a that provided the organizing principle and charge of +4 because each oxygen had to have a animating spark. (Recall that Galvani thought -2 charge. These problems seemed minor that he had discovered proof of that "spark".) compared to those posed by myriad other organic Although some inorganic substances such as compounds. Again, the vitalist principle hydrogen could burn, most did not. On the other provided the justification for the strange hand, almost all organic compounds could behavior of life's molecules. undergo combustion, and, when they did, they would release fixed air (or carbon dioxide) and AN ACCIDENTAL SCIENCE water among their byproducts. Lavoisier had It was like a dark forest with few or no pathways. concluded that the materials of life must contain -Woehler the elements carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen in The clear distinction and explanation that varying proportions. He determined that by separated organic from inorganic compounds heating materials such as wood or fat and changed dramatically following a simple set of collecting their constituent parts. This experiments by Friedrich Woehler (1800-1882). determination procedure remained the standard He had been an undistinguished student at the method for organic compounds through the University of Heidleberg from which he middle of the 19th Century. Nevertheless, the graduated with a degree in medicine. Later he accumulated results suggested that organic said that he spent much of his spare time compounds were quite bizarre when compared working on his own experiments in chemistry. with their inorganic counterparts. For example, With the blessing and advice of his mentor, iron combined with oxygen in a limited number Leopold Gmelin, Woehler went to Sweden to of ways in the production of compounds, while study in the laboratory of Berzelius with whom carbon combined with oxygen (and hydrogen) in he struck up a life-long friendship. He learned a bewildering number of ratios. the habits of precision and careful measurement A substance like iron oxide could be heated, that so characterized the work of the Swedish separated into its constituent elements, and chemist. After a year, Woehler returned to recombined to make iron oxide again. Sugar, a Germany and ended up on the faculty of a common organic compound, when heated would technical institute in Berlin. There, he began a smoke or char even if it did not burn. It could be very productive period during which his converted to its constituent elements (carbon- accomplishments included the isolation of hydrogen-oxygen) by burning, but those aluminum in the metallic state. elements could not be recombined outside of a Woehler's most lasting contribution came in living body to form sugar again. 1828 when he attempted to prepare a pure The behavior of inorganic substances like solution of ammonium cyanate (NH4CNO) from iron oxide could be explained. Berzelius had a mixture of silver cyanate (AgCNO) and established that compounds are constructed of ammonium chloride (NH4Cl). (Some sources say components (atoms) that have particular charges. that he mixed potassium cyanate and ammonium Thus, molecules like iron oxide are made of sulfate). He heated the preparation and allowed positively and negatively charged ions. For it to dry. As it did, long, white crystals began to example, iron can have a charge of +3 while grow. Woehler recognized the crystals (after oxygen has a charge of -2; so, hematite, an ore of some testing) as urea, a substance common in the iron oxide has an empirical formula of Fe2O3 urine of mammals (for example, an adult human (with a net charge of 0). Berzelius referred to typically excretes about 25g of urea per day). this electrical bonding as the Dualistic Theory. Urea had been isolated and characterized by H. Soon, he saw that clusters of atoms sometimes M. Rouelle in 1773. stay together as a charged unit or radical. Recall Woehler tested the "artificial urea" and Wilhelm Kastner and followed him to Ehrlangen pronounced, "it coincides perfectly with that of the next year. Liebig became caught up in the urea from urine." He had synthesized an organic political unrest of the university and spent three molecule from inorganic precursors. He had days in jail following a demonstration. That, found the chink in the armor of vitalism. He coupled with his disappointment in Kastner as a wrote to Berzelius: "I can no longer, so to speak, chemist caused him to petition the government hold my chemical water and must tell you that I (with the help of Kastner) for a grant to study in can make urea without needing a kidney, Paris.

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